HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL — 1 March 1990
香港立法局
——一九九○年三月一日
35
4.25 pm
HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT: Members might like to take a short break at this point.
4.40 pm
HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT: Council resumes.
MR. TIEN: Sir, after more than four years of discussion, the final product has been unveiled. It is now set in concrete. We have even seen the picture of Mr. DENG Xiaoping, China's senior leader, speaking about this in glowing terms as if a new page of history had been turned.
But, for us, it does not look like that at all. Many of us are disappointed.
The final model fails, I believe, to meet even the baseline of the so-called 4:4:2 model, not to mention the OMELCO consensus. We should remind ourselves that the 4:4:2 was itself a compromise between the liberals, the moderates and the business and professional members of the Basic Law Consultative Committee. So, I share the keenly-felt disappointment of my fellow Councillors, but perhaps for different reasons.
Let me spell this out. Compared with the OMELCO consensus and the 4:4:2 model, the model in the final draft is different in terms of its proposed timetable, in terms of the ratio of its component parts, in terms of the separate voting mechanism and again in terms of the nationality restrictions.
Let us put this all in perspective. The British flag was raised here in Hong Kong in 1841. From 1841 to the introduction of direct elections in 1991 is exactly 150 years. In terms of Hong Kong's history we will move far in the next 12 years (1991-2003). We will see by next year 18 new members, admitted through the avenue of direct elections. We are on the brink of changes which can only be described as fast in history terms. For a century and a half, we managed without direct election. In a short 12 years, Hong Kong is promised to progress from a position where there are no directly elected legislators at all to one with half of this entire Council so elected.
Social implications of the move to direct elections
The question of direct elections naturally involves a dramatic transfer of power. Advocates of rapid change, both inside and outside this Council are